‘I don’t understand why all this is
happening to me, why I am being tormented, and my body can no longer bear it.’ Oqba Hashad
RIGHTS 2024
WRITE FOR
STUDENT DETAINED WITHOUT TRIAL
Oqba Hashad has been arbitrarily detained in Egypt for nearly five years solely because of his brother’s human rights activism.
In May 2019, Oqba Hashad was a business student at the University of Sadat City when the National Security Agency raided his residence and arrested him. Nearly five years on, he remains in arbitrary detention without trial, despite a court order for his release. Oqba was targeted by the authorities because of his brother’s human rights activism. Amr Hashad, a human rights activist and legal researcher, fled Egypt in 2019 after his release from prison. From exile, he has continued to document human rights violations in Egypt. The prison authorities have interrogated Oqba on multiple occasions about Amr’s work and contact with his family in Egypt. They also questioned him about whether he had shared any information with his brother about his prison conditions.
The conditions in question are horrific. Since August 2022, the prison authorities have subjected Oqba to torture and other ill- treatment by cruelly denying him access to
adequate healthcare and the prosthetic leg he needs to move around unassisted. This causes him physical and psychological pain, not least because he is forced to rely on other prisoners to meet his most basic needs. As a state party to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Egypt must ensure that detainees with disabilities are provided with reasonable accommodation and health services.
Oqba is not alone. Since 2013, the Egyptian authorities have routinely violated the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly of its citizens. They use counter- terrorism laws to restrict these rights, have arbitrarily detained thousands of critics, and target the families of dissidents in retaliation. ‘Oqba is suffering because of me, and he is being punished for no reason,’ said Amr, ‘and we do not know when all this will end.’
WINTER 2024 AMNESTY 17
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